The change of white school shoes to black shoes as announced by Minister of Education ,Dr. Maszlee, was greeted with very mixed reactions from the public. Some of the criticisms, especially from some online portals, were extremely harsh and hostile. As a parent and a lawmaker, I welcome the decision, and think it is long overdue.
There are many problems with white school shoes. Many private schools and other countries like Indonesia and Thailand have opted for black school shoes instead. White shoes seemed to me a peculiar mistake and legacy from a bygone era.
There are many who argued against changing to black school shoes. However, most of them do not see the big picture of things or take into account of the changing world.
First and foremost argument is the colour of shoes is the last of our concerns and we should concentrate on more important policies to raise the standard of education. Isn’t it amazing these critics cannot figure out the time spent washing, drying and white chalking the shoes can be better used for the children to read a book instead? 30 minutes a week, 43 school weeks a year, multiply with the total primary and secondary student population of 4,772,995 students in 2017 alone will add up to 102.6 million hours. That is 11,714 years equivalent of time of reading to raise our education standards.
Second commonest argument is that washing shoes and keeping them white instil discipline in children. This argument is flawed as students with the cleanest whitest pairs of shoes are likely to be from rich families and do not wash their own shoes. Children can learn discipline washing their own plates, wash and iron their own clothes plus tidy up their own rooms. Shoes are not there to show discipline but meant to protect the feet of our children, especially those that need to walk a treacherous route to schools in the rural areas. Unfortunately, it had got to the point that the rural children are well known to take off their only pair of shoes walking to schools so they don’t get dirtied. How ridiculous can it be ? How cruel can we be as parents and educators to be indifferent and tolerate such twisted sense of discipline and risk injuries to poor children’s feet ?
Third argument is that all the current white shoes will be gone to waste and it will be a burden to the poor family. The Minister Dr. Maszlee had given a grace period until 2020 as the transitional period to smooth things out. In the long run, the parents will save money because black shoes required less scrubbing and washing and thus last longer with less need to buy new shoes. The parents will spend less on water usage, detergents and white chalks. In fact, black shoes can be used for after school and co-curricular activities. So the poor students only need to buy one pair of shoes for all occasions and not worried about going to school with dirty looking shoes. They also don’t have to carry the second pair of shoes to school for other school activities with already heavy school bags.
Fourth arguments is that black shoes absorb heat and not suitable for Malaysian climate. This does not stand against the real world evidence as most Malaysian adults, Thailand and Indonesian students wear black shoes without getting their feet burned.
Finally, the arguments white shoes are cleaner and healthier because they get washed every week. This thinking is so out of date and out of place with the latest evidence on environmental issues. Even hotels encourage guests not to ask for clean towels everyday to reduce unnecessary washings. It becomes a really big environmental and health issue when you think of the amount of water and detergent used in washing the white school shoes. 5 litres per students mean 23.86 million litres of water every week, and more than 1 billion of litres of water each year wasted AND polluted with highly poisonous detergent into the environment. On top of that, tens of millions of bottles of white chalk are also used. At the end, these pollutions and empty discarded containers get into our food chains and into our children’s stomachs. To look clean and poison ourselves is the highest of follies.
In summary, the change over to black school shoes can help save time for our children to concentrate on their studies as well as save our environment from more pollution for a better healthier future. It will also save parents money. It was the right decision and the Minister’s policy change can make a better world of difference.